Departure

iPRECIATION is proud to present a group exhibition featuring the works of Milenko Prvacki and his students. Curated by Milenko who is a Cultural Medallion recipient, educator, artist and painter, Departure will be a visual art exhibition that captures the new generations of young artists whose work represents different tangents of painting practices, concepts and ideas here in Singapore. The works exhibited will range from paintings and drawings to mixed media installations, presenting new perspectives in representation, abstraction, materiality, space and time in painting and other mediums of art works.

Milenko has taught art to many generations of young, emerging Singaporean artists graduating from LaSalle College of the Arts, and his influence has been broad and positive. Participating artists – Jeremy Sharma, Luke Heng, Filip Gudovic and Hilmi Johandi – are some of Milenko’s best students, hand-picked by the master. This exhibition will continue the dialogue of contemporary art practices in Singapore through the departure of Milenko Prvacki’s own practice and the environment created by LaSalle College of the Arts, in order to reach out to a variety of audiences within the Singapore public and to create a larger awareness of present modes of enquiry into painting and installation through these young artists’ works.

Born 1951 in Yugoslavia and graduating with a Master of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Romania, Milenko Prvacki is one of Singapore’s foremost contemporary artists and art educator. Prvacki served as Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts for 17 years at Singapore’s LASALLE College of the Arts. He currently holds the position of Senior Fellow at the institution. Recognized as a major artist in the region, Prvacki has exhibited extensively in Europe since 1971, and in Singapore and the region since 1993. He has held numerous solo exhibitions, including the recent retrospective Milenko Prvacki: A Survey, 1979-2012, at the Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore, 2012. In the same year, Prvacki was honoured with the prestigious Cultural Medallion in Singapore.

Jeremy Sharma (b.1977) works primarily as a painter but his body of work encompasses video, photography, drawing and installation. He obtained his Master of Art (Fine Art) at the LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts / Open University, United Kingdom in 2006, and his Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) with High Distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia in 2003. Over the past nine years, he has had a number of solo exhibitions in Singapore, which includes Apropos (2012) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, Variations (2011) at Art Forum Gallery, and The Protection Paintings – Of Sensations and Superscriptions (2008) at Jendela. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Italy, England and the United States. Jeremy currently teaches in the Faculty of Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts.

Luke Heng (b.1987) graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts (Goldsmiths University of London), with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honors). A recipient of the LASALLE College of the Arts Scholarship in 2012, Luke has actively participated in group exhibitions in Asia. His most recent exhibitions include Art Stage Singapore 2013, SPOT ART 2013 at the MICA building, Asia Contemporary Art Show Hong Kong 2013,Affordable Art Fair 2012 in Singapore and The LASALLE Show 2012.

Filip Gudovic (b.1992) was born in Belgrade, Serbia. He attended Arhitektonska Technicka Skola (School of Architecture) in Belgrade, Serbia, and came to Singapore to study in LASALLE College of the Arts, for his Bachelor in Fine Arts 2009-2012, and Master in Fine Arts 2013-2014, on scholarship awards. Gudovic has actively exhibited his ideas throughout his study years here in Singapore and abroad. He held a solo exhibitionShifting Between Surfaces at TriSpace. ICAs Singapore in 2013. His works has been exhibited at Art Stage Singapore 2014; BELEF 13, Summer Festival Art Exhibition, Belgrade, Serbia; Hong Kong Contemporary Art Fair 2013, Hong Kong; Drawing Out. RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and Annual Painting Exhibition, Academy of Fine Arts Vladivostok, Russia.

Hilmi Johandi (b.1987) graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts – Goldsmiths University of London with a Bachelors Degree with First Class Honours in Fine Arts. He has participated in a number of exhibitions in Singapore since 2009. He has showcased at the Young Talent Programme 2013 for the Affordable Art Fair Singapore and was nominated for The Young Talent Programme Winners’ Solo Exhibition for 2013/14. His recent participations include Neo-Folk at Ikkan Gallery, Singapore; Flux – City of Change, a curated exhibition for Strarta Art Fair in Saatchi Gallery, London; Cross Encounters at the Japan Creative Centre Singapore; a juried exhibition Spot Art at the Singapore ARTrium, and a curated exhibition called Interplay at Art Stage Singapore 2013.